'Blink Twice' Review: Zoë Kravitz' thrilling, chilling social nightmare
Blink Twice is Kravitz putting her stake in the ground with a kind of Roe v. Wade revanchism, illuminating all the things women are asked (and asked themselves) to forget.
Sugar, spice, and everything not nice, Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut Blink Twice combines a psychosexual thriller with gender politics and a head-knocking battle, producing an entertaining yet visceral commentary on memory and control. It is the post-#MeToo feminist party-girl nightmare thriller about women who are knowingly manipulated and unraveling and who abruptly come to. With visually rich close-ups and hair-raising audio, Kravitz displays her cinephilia all while asking, “Can you dismantle the master’s house using the master’s tools?” paraphrasing Audre Lorde. Viewers are left to answer this question while the film draws clearer through lines from the dystopian novel Lord of the Flies and the biblical allegory of the Garden of Eden. It takes a group of people and puts them outside their usual context, without recourse, to see their true colors, and it’s a story about a woman asking for more information and being condemned for it.
If there were any reservations about Kravitz’s capacity to land the actor-to-director transition, this film—previously and more audaciously titled Pussy Island—casts out all aspersions. The shining (pun intended) feature was the dropped-in performances. Naiomi Ackie plays Frida, the aloof and dejected cocktail waitress spending her time like many millennials, comparing and despairing and half-heartedly promoting a small nail design business on social media. Her spirits are lifted slightly when she is told by her chauvinistic boss that the tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) will attend one of her events, who advises her to be less visible and smile more. Seemingly expecting to see Slater on his apology tour featured in a reel she doom-scrolled the night before, she’s nonplussed by her manager’s news. The male supervisor’s effortless misogyny points itself out, forecasting a more profound analysis that ultimately never arrives.
King apologizes for his undisclosed transgressions, the details of which we’re never told but which we can easily imagine. A rich white guy confessing his sins in an interview, bemoaning his behavior and promising to do better is a situation we’ve all witnessed before. This is precisely what we see the night before as Frida doom scrolls—King delivering his mea culpa, declaring he will step down as CEO to reflect on his behavior at his new luxury villa; “we have chickens,” he offers as evidence of his contrition.
In tandem with her scolding, we’re introduced to Frida’s friend and coworker, Jess (Alia Shawkat), who listens to Frida exalt over Slater. Frida’s enthusiasm would be surprising given how incel-esque billionaires are today, except for Kravitz casting Tatum in this role, whose classically handsome look and beguiling charisma strangely work in this sinister character.
But Jess quickly cuts the shmaltzing short, astutely observing Frida is like honey for buzzy men with delicate egos. “You’re not a human phone charger,” she pleas. “Have some self respect.” A note echoing Veep’s Selena Myer advising her daughter Catherine that “men are horrible… and the key is to just find a man who is the least horrible.”
However, the two sneak into the event after working hours, and Slater’s charisma quickly brokers a detente between the now giddy pair. Things escalate quickly as Frida snaps a heel in a Cinderella moment that, like kismet, thrusts her and Slater into an engrossed conversation lasting past the conclusion of his event. King is reminded to return to his island and leave but circles back at the last moment to invite Frida and Jess to join.
The two women board a private jet with several other random women recruited to entertain Slater’s cabal of party bros—Cody (Simon Rex), Vic (Christian Slater), and Tom (Haley Joel Osment), and their invitees, Sarah (Adria Arjona), Heather (Trew Mullen), and Camilla (Liz Caribel). They’re met at the island villa by Slater’s neurotic assistant and sister (Geena Davis) and sundry presumably Indigenous staff offering endless dream resort perks from bottomless champagne, weed, and elegant dinners to exotic perfume, high-thread-count sheets and bespoke clothing. It feels too good to be true, but nothing will kill Frida’s vibe.
Slater, the eternal charmer, asks Frida anaphorically throughout the film, “are you having a good time,” just before the group enters into further debauchery. While the question feels lightly coercive the first time, with repetition it begins to feel foreboding. The good time boys and girls party on though to a sultry R&B soundtrack, including James Brown’s “People Get Up And Drive Your Funky Soul” a song about leaning into your emotions and freedom. Easy-going music meant to reinforce the relaxed, sumptuous visuals instead jarringly reminds us of the maxim that some thing that seem too good to be true probably are. The partiers are not free and upon examination, the Jonestown and #MeTooesque flashbacks Frida begins experiencing signals us this romp is more of a cult-like display of corporate hedonism. The women may be dancing but aren’t free: confined to a choreography of smiles and flirting, they’ll be seen as not with the program if off-beat.
Blink Twice mirrors the psycho-drama, Midsommar, Ari Aster’s white cotton dress adorned fever dream about an American couple’s Swedish vacation to a commune that turns out to be a cult. That film realizes the forbidden fruit fantasy. But, Blink Twice, with its big swings, delivers a venomous truth about the omnipresence of sexual violence. The film reminds us of powerful men like Jeffrey Eppstein, who brought vacationers and fellow predators to his island, and Bill Cosby and David Copperfield, who used drugs to commit their crimes. Blink Twice has diffuse clues that something not quite right is going on at the villa. A loopy maid appears in Frida’s room saying then yelling “red rabbit” repeatedly, and a steak stain on her dress that later inexplicably vanishes. We are left to wonder why.
Slater’s bros are pompous and a little creepy. Still, they are not Weinsteins from Christian Slater, the assistant to Lucas, the thin tech magician (Levon Hawke) to Tom, the cuddly nerd (Haley Joel Osment) to Cody, the chef, played by Simon Rex as an obsequious food guru. They give the expected vibes from a tech oligarch’s squad. But that is sort of the point. They appear to be demure, mindful friends of Slaters but turn out to be more like Thomas Ripley, acting out the dark fantasy’s of more powerful men. Again, we ask if Frida and her island sisters are trapped victims, and why are they so unconscious about what’s happening?
The answer is deeply uncomfortable, and as we sit with it, we can’t pull out of the sinking feeling enough to enjoy the “don’t worry, be happy” pleasure loop meant to override it. Like a verbal eraser to Frida, Slater reinforces this feeling, saying, “Forgetting is beautiful,” an aphorism that underscores Blink Twice as a feminist allegory of memory. While the film doesn’t narratively synthesize this idea presented in the setup, it carries it out brashly and with panache. Blink Twice is Kravitz putting her stake in the ground with a kind of Roe v. Wade revanchism, illuminating all the things women are asked (and asked themselves) to forget. Blink Twice frames the idea that life can be a dream, and ironically, the real nightmare is realized when you wake up.